Yeah, it’s actually Sunday morning here. But I think I may finally be caught up from my two weeks in the States now, sleepwise. Sure, I woke up at 4 this morning…but that’s actually later than I usually wake up. And then I got back to sleep until 6, which is a downright luxury with me.
In any case, I’m hoping that, with the schedule back in place, I may get back to writing more regularly. I’ve quite often felt too tired to bother over the past couple of weeks. Let’s hope that’s done with.
As for Saturday’s ride, well, I didn’t have much of a plan going into Friday. I occasionally get the feeling to go a particular direction, and south seemed reasonable to me — but south where? I usually get on the laptop to figure those things out, but this time around, I only had my phone with me. So when I opened up my Naver map and looked to the south, something kind of jumped out at me that I wouldn’t have seen on the laptop — a historical marker labelled “Chusa Kim Jung-Hee House.”
Now, I’ve seen these “birthplace” houses all over the place (we rode to one earlier this year, as a matter of fact). There’s one right over on the other side of base. And they’ve all pretty much been commemorating a local independence fighter — someone marginally famous for the area, and completely obscure to anyone outside of it. But from the looks of this one, this guy Kim might have been something a bit more. So I asked one of the teachers at work here “what is this word, ‘Chusa’?” She didn’t know, until I told her it was used for this guy Kim Jung-Hee. Turns out, he’s famous. When I mentioned his name to Micha, she knew immediately who he was — a Joseon Dynasty scholar who went by the pen name “Chusa.” I’ll let the sign tell a bit more of the story:
As for the ride, it was somewhat pleasant for its length (just short of 79 miles). Quite flat, actually, with less than 2,000 feet of elevation (about 50 miles in, I opted for a flatter route than I’d originally planned). With scattered thunderstorms in the forecast, I had my fenders on, but nothing came of it but a few miles of a drizzle so light it didn’t accumulate anywhere in the slightest (I couldn’t actually see it, but I could feel it). There was some welcome cloud cover too, but by the end of the ride — when it was getting hotter — not enough.
A major bonus to this ride, and unknown to me when I planned it, I did get to see a very rare tree along the route, also associated with Kim and located not far from his home. It was a Lacebark Pine (literally “White Pine” in Korean) that was quite beautiful. The pictures I took weren’t really good enough, but you can see that it’s quite a unique tree in any case.
I’m hoping that the historical marker function on the Naver map app will lead me to more interesting places. There are actually probably quite a few up toward Seoul that are just blocked out by all of the sprawl of the city, but if I really look, and zoom in enough on the map, maybe I can find new places to explore. Stay tuned…
